26 
HOLDERNESS. 
Of these, the most constant beds appear to be Nos. 1, 2, and 5, and, in 
general, these constitute the whole deposit. In different places, the layers 
exhibit much diversity of colour, consistence, and thickness. The peat 
varies in its thickness from five feet to less than as many inches, and 
its constituent parts seem not the same : in a few instances there are no 
shells in the lower clay, and when they do occur, they are sometimes 
of different kinds ; cyclades and paludinas are most plentiful. Anodons 
occur in it at Owthorne and Skipsea, but I did not find them elsewhere. 
The quadrupedal remains which have been found in this lacustrine 
formation belong principally to deer. Bones of oxen, likewise, occur 
in it. Of deer, at least three species have been discovered in the peat 
and clay ; the great Irish elk, (C. giganteus,) the red deer, (C. elaphus,) 
and the fallow deer, (C. dama.) A doubtful skull, (found at Owthorne,) 
in the possession of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, has some re- 
semblance to the cranium of the chamois. 
The extensive accumulations of peat and trees, along the shores of the 
Humber and its tributary rivers, happened, probably, at the same period 
of time as those which have contributed to fill up the ancient lakes 
of Holderness. This is inferred, with great probability of truth, from 
the position of the peat with respect to the diluvial clay and pebbles ; 
for, wherever these occur together, the former is invariably upper- 
most. The opinion of the peat extending under the whole district of 
Holderness, was probably founded on the very considerable depth at 
which it is, in some places, buried under sediment deposited by the sea. 
But this silt, accumulated by the action of the tide, which composes the 
surface of the level land in Holderness, may be easily distinguished from 
the more ancient aggregations of clay, sand, and pebbles, which belong to 
the diluvial formation. No fresh-water shells, nor any such alternations 
of argillaceous marls as those which lie in the site of former lakes, 
accompany the peat deposit of the marshlands ; but it is covered by a 
marine deposit of silt and clay, such as now drops from the muddy 
waters of the Humber. The depth of this covering is, in some instances, 
not less than thirty feet, and the peat lies below the low-water mark ; 
